The Volturi and Me
by Nee-cho-let-tee
Summary: Not very long ago, there was a farm girl. Not very long, she had a family. There was once a Gianna Versarri and this might just be her untold story. PS : Oneshot


Author's Note : This is a little something I made this afternoon. Please tell me what you think of it. Gianna, the receptionist for the Volturi, was not given much information and this is a tribute to her. I always thought that she was not as freaky as she seemed. Of course she would've been terrified with what was truly going on in the round room and knew perfectly well what happened to the guests who filed in and took the Heidi bait. There might've been something Edward missed from reading her mind...

The Volturi and Me

"Smile, Gianna," the voice in my head hissed.

I smiled obediently and tried to erase all the horrors and worries from my mind.

"Welcome!" I greeted the guests.

They filed in the room-all looking around-some intrigued, some delighted. Some both.

Still, some neither.

It was my job to make them feel better-before they become food for the undead.

"Hello ma'am," I walked up to her.

She was a little old lady who had wispy white hair. She wore a black veil over her head. She shivered upon my approach. Her eyes were wide with terror and shock. She clung to a wooden rosary which she wore as a necklace.

Her voice terrified me.

It was shaking and the worst part was that I couldn't make out anything she said.

There was no way to calm her.

She dropped the cross of her rosary and began shaking my shoulders.

The others began to notice.

"Um, Miss?" a man's voice called to me.

"Yes? Gianna," I tried to answer him and introduced myself as calmly as I could but my voice started to shake now.

My defenses were weakened by this poor woman but despite all this, I still pitied myself more. I am sure that Heidi will tell on me. Again.

"Miss Gianna, is that woman alright?" he asked again.

He sounded worried.

I faced him with a professional smile. "Why yes. She's worried about not finding the comfort room with the size of the place."

The man eased up almost quickly and he shared this information to the others.

They all laughed with him and they relaxed and began candid conversations.

I faced the woman again who spoke in a foreign language.

I tried to make my voice a little louder than necessary for the other guests to hear. "Ma'am, you and the others will pass by a comfort room on your way so don't you worry now."

The others laughed again.

"Have a great time here in Volterra!" I waved at all of their smiling faces.

The woman with a shirt that said 'Volterra, Italy', the engaging man with a camera, a boy who licked his gelato in delight ...

I had to look away after they said goodbye to me and filed in a line again to be led by Heidi.

Who'll lead them to ...

"Ah, Gianna," I recognized Demetri's voice immediately.

His of all people here-if they were considered people.

The voice that would forever haunt me in my sleep. The face that's inhumanly beautiful and hair that waves down to his shoulders. Hard to resist falling in love with somebody like that. But I have a pretty good reason anyway.

I faced him with a delighted face. "Hello Demetri."

"You never fail to amuse me whenever food comes to this place. You would've made a great actress," he commented with a smile.

"Thank you. It is my job after all. Shouldn't you get going? They might not save enough for you."

"So eager for me to leave already? Very well. I will come by here again as soon as I can."

"I will be waiting, Demetri."

"Goodbye now," he glided to follow the crowd of people to the round room.

"There will be blood," the voice in my head joked.

I laughed at its humor.

Another job well done.

How many times have I seen the faces of the innocents, how many times have I let them file in the room and try to calm them down if there was a need to. Sometimes I ask myself if I was doomed to be like this forever. To serve a powerful vampire family who deserve not a single second in my shattered life. They snatched me away from the life I once had. They wiped my past and my future single-handedly. In just one night.

There was once a girl whom I didn't know. She was drenched wet and she was every bit as human as I am when she came in the room. She was nothing like the others who came here before or after her. Most of the time, the people who came here looked their best-looked like tourists who were eager to take pictures and look good in them. I don't know what story Heidi fills their minds in. But I know that each time it is different. Going back to the girl, what amazed me was that she was in the arms of a male vampire and was accompanied by another female and they looked at her with peculiar eyes. They cared for her and even loved her. It was very human of them to feel for her that way that I almost hoped. Hoped to be rescued from this unwanted life of mine.

The male vampire who carried her came by here a day before she and that petite female arrived. He looked like he was messed up but that was none of my business. My business was to mislead people into thinking that they were in no grave danger, period. But this male intrigued me so much that I had gone so far as to follow him and eavesdrop on his conversation with the ancient ones-the onion-skinned ones who called themselves Aro, Caius, and Marcus. And then I found out why I was so intrigued. He could read minds. I rejoiced and that joy came as soon as it left. No matter how I screamed in my head that I wanted to be rescued and that I was on his side, he'd never be able to hear me. And I was disappointed. He was the last flicker of hope in my damned life and he came, as my joy did, and left again.

Not very long ago, I was an ordinary farm girl.

Not very long ago, I had a family-I had a father, a mother, four sisters, and a brother.

And not very long ago, we lived a calm and peaceful life in our farm in the Tuscan valleys.

Unlike most Catholic families in the town I grew up in, my family didn't go to church on Sundays. But we were Catholics and so were the rest of the Versarri clan-my uncles, my aunts, my grandfather, and my cousins. We did gather in the meadow near our farm and a nice old priest whom we called Father Elias would come and celebrate mass for us. I never got a chance to go to the church and so I asked my grandfather one Sunday, after the mass.

"Grandfather, why can't we hear mass at the church like everybody else?"

"It is because the church doesn't have a place for us," he grunted. His tone was almost sarcastic and it was far from the gentle little man I once knew.

I looked confused the day he told me that and was going to ask him more but my father interrupted. "What he means, little Gianna, is that the church is a little place. You've seen it from a far. And a lot of families are going there and if the Versarris will, too, then we would all be in big trouble. Besides, we have Father Elias."

I tried to forget about that question in my head and I grew up like any ordinary girl. When I was 8 and my twin older sisters were 12, they left our farm to live with Uncle Antonio, father's oldest brother, and his wife, Aunt Juliana.

"Mother, why did Brigitta and Leona have to leave us?" I asked one evening.

"Sweetheart, it's because your uncle and aunt are childless and they have always expressed delight in your sisters-not that they love you and your younger siblings less," my mother answered casually.

But then questions started to race in my head again. There was something about that look on mother's face that made me remember grandfather's even though they were in no way similar. Something told me that there was a secret and they were keeping it from me.

When I was 12, I was also sent to live with Uncle Antonio and Aunt Juliana and then they explained to me everything.

"The reason why we can't be anywhere near the church, Gianna, is because the friars see us as murderers," Uncle Antonio announced bluntly.

He was never one who dug around the bush.

"Are we a family of murderers, Uncle?" I gasped.

It was then that Uncle Antonio told me about grandmother's death.

"She just disappeared, didn't she?"

"No she didn't."

Uncle Antonio told me everything without interruptions anymore. Aunt Juliana didn't say a word at all and I was too stunned to remember everything he said. I did catch the part when he told me that grandmother was killed by a vampire. That grandfather was devastated by this and the whole Versarri family could do nothing to comfort him. The one witness to grandmother's death was said to be Uncle Luis who died when I was not born yet, too. He tried to avenge his mother's death and died in the process. So now, two more Versarris perished and Uncle Antonio wanted revenge. He said that he would train me to kill vampires just as he trained my sisters.

I had no idea just how talented Uncle was with fighting skills. My sisters and I trained with my other cousins and we grew stronger everyday. My younger sister and brother joined, too, when they reached the age of 12 and when I was 19, Uncle thought that it was time.

The vampire who killed grandmother was said to be a wild female and just as we trained, we spied on her. We even learnt to identify vampires from humans which was not really that difficult. People in town remained indifferent towards us as we stalked the female. And then one night, we found her in her usual feeding spot. We outnumbered her-Uncle Antonio, me, my three sisters, my younger brother, and 5 of my older cousins. And we killed her. There was nothing much to say about the action and the danger we all put ourselves into. But we finally avenged grandmother's and Uncle Luis' death and we went home to celebrate.

The whole Versarri gathered in our farm house and that night, Uncle Antonio announced that he was going to let us all go home to our parents and we were happy. We thought that we could finally sleep peacefully that night and we danced and feasted. We thought that we killed the vampire that terrorized the town and even if the church still would not let us in, we were happy.

And then, just after midnight, three cloaked figures crashed into our windows and screams erupted from the house. Along with them were some more vampires. And I was terrified but I was still determined to fight despite getting outnumbered. The first to throw himself to them to protect the whole family was Uncle Antonio and he was the first to perish that night. I was so devastated by his death which happened right before my very eyes that I lunged into one of the cloaked ones who had long jet black hair but something blocked me from him and instead, knocked me down. And all the screams faded as I fell unconscious.

I didn't know where I was or what day it was when I woke up. And there was Demetri and he sat next to me.

"Hello," was the first thing he said.

I identified his face as the one who knocked me down and the memory of the night came rushing back to me. Grief struck me in the most unbearable way possible.

"Kill me!" I screamed to his face.

He looked serenely. "I can't."

"Why not? You killed my whole family. Why can't you do the same to me?"

"It'd be a waste," and he held my face between his two large hands and kissed me.

I was of course unwilling because this was one of the creatures who killed my family. He belonged to the same species as the one who killed my grandmother and he was with the cloaked ones. They killed my Uncle Antonio.

To this day, I can only assume that Demetri, as handsome as he is, fell in love with me, a mere mortal.

Even an enemy to his kind.

He never did tell me this but once in a blue moon, he would just come out of nowhere and kiss me and I would have to kiss him back unwillingly.

I didn't love him but in a way, I owe my life to him.

He convinced the cloaked figures-who happened to be the ancient ones-to keep me and after a while, they gave me a job and this was what I got. Sort of a receptionist. And I learnt more and more about the nature of these vampires and exactly how things are running in this sanctuary of theirs.

As for the voice, it overshadows my real thoughts if anyone wanted to read.

And so whatever that mind-reading male vampire heard, it would never have been "Help me". It might've been "I oh so love my job".

I do not exactly where the voice comes from.

I would like to think of it as the spirits of the Versarris but it is ambivalent. At times they're on my side but other times, they're with the Volturi.

The day I learnt about the mysterious voice in my head was the first few days of my stay here at the Volturis' sanctuary in Volterra.

I was angry with myself and I hated myself for letting my family die. I was angry because there was a family of vampires who lived right under our noses and the idea of being their prisoner.

Then the voice spoke to me. "There's still hope."

And a brilliant new plan occurred to me.

"Ah, Gianna," Demetri greeted me as he slid in front of my desk.

"Done already?" I pretended to be interested-as if I liked the idea that he killed people for his thirst-again.

"I broke my personal record."

"That you did."

"You know, that little old woman got to my nerves, really."

"Yeah. She got to mine, too. She was being very difficult," I dreaded what I said but as he himself commented, I was a very good actress and I could really deceive anybody. Even vampires.

"I took care of her."

I tried not to show any sign of pity or mercy. Instead, I laughed morbidly. "Thank you."

"That's not enough," and he leaned over and kissed me painfully.

"Are you done?" I chuckled lightly-hiding my extreme dislike.

"Yes. Say, you should take Spanish classes. We need you to acquire a foreign tongue for our international guests," he joked.

"I'd love to go back to school."

"I'll inform the ancient ones about it," he winced.

Someday, Demetri will pay and so will the rest of the Volturi once they decide to turn me into a vampire. If they should ever make that decision, it will be worst one yet. They will face my wrath. I will make them pay for what they did to my family. To the life I once had. To the life I could never bring back-only bring to justice.

Today, I will pretend to be faithful to them. After all, I befriended Jane and Alec and made most of Demetri's fellow guard friends think that I left the past behind already. As if. The ancient ones still wouldn't let me near them. Especially Marcus, the one who killed Uncle Antonio. After a while, I learnt that the female we killed who killed grandmother and Uncle Luis was his mate. I would pretend to be a loyal servant to him as I would to the others but his eyes would pierce me often. And there's Heidi who could still smell the anger that lingers in me but all the rest are clueless. Even Aro, who could read minds as well. The voice in my head is the only voice you would hear if you would listen carefully.

I am misleading everybody. I am misleading them. I am just doing my job.


End file.
